Around 25 people may have been killed under the rubble of a shopping centre that caught fire in the Russian city of Kazan, according to an official quoted by Interfax news agency. The blaze broke out on Wednesday in a café on the first storey of the building, killing seven people, according to the latest media reports, and sending flames and black smoke high into the air. “There may be up to 25 people under the rubble of the burnt-out shopping centre in Kazan. No one among them is alive,” Igor Panshin, the head of the regional emergencies ministry, was quoted by Interfax as saying. “The roof collapsed and under the ruins there are people,” he said, adding that relatives and store workers were unable to contact those known to be in the shopping centre at the time of the collapse. Emergency workers were continuing to clear away rubble late on Thursday in Kazan, which is about 500 miles east of Moscow, in Russia’s Tatarstan region. Panshin said emergency workers would need approximately two days to clear the debris from the scene of the blaze, while Life News reported that around 200 people had been evacuated from the building, and 16 were still in hospital being treated for injuries.